Amanda shifted the propeller controls to forward and opened the throttles to half ahead, aligning the bow with the deckhouse lights of the Bajara, the sole constellation glowing in the darkness of the harbor. With that done, she reached over to the auxiliary panel and closed a switch.
“Captain,” an urgent call sounded on the tac circuit. “The running lights just came on!”
“I know, Sergeant. I just turned them on,” she replied into the lip mike. “That’s what the tug’s real skipper would do if he’d been called out on a routine job. And we want to keep this all routine for just as long as we can.”
The firing cell thumped back flush with the Queen of the West’s weather deck.
“All rounds expended,” Snowy reported. “All missions launched.”
“Right.” Steamer nodded. He rocked the swimmer throttles forward and spoke into his headset mike. “Royalty to Palace. Fire missions complete. Proceeding to Waypoint Blue Mountain. Royalty to squadron. Taking departure now.”
The acknowledgments flowed back as the seafighter gained silent way, edging closer to Port Monrovia’s harbor mouth.
“Snow, what’s on tactical? Where’s that Union squadron?”
“They’re still out there sweeping for the Santana,” she replied. “I don’t think they caught the recall order yet. I think our jammers have ’em cut off.”
“Yeah. Let’s just hope they keep right on going.”
“Yeah… Hey, Steamer, what happens when they do get the word? What if we get caught inside when we go for the pickup?”
“Then I suspect, Snow, that there will be one hell of a fight on the way out.”
Footsteps clattered up the ladderway and Scrounger Caitlin stuck her head up into the cockpit. “Eyeball verification on the launching cell, Skipper. Fully retracted and secured.”
“Good deal, Scrounge. How’s everybody down in the hull?”
“Hangin’ in,” the turbine tech replied. “How’s the mission coming?”
“By the numbers so far, but I think things are going to blow pretty quick. We’re moving in to the recovery point. Tell everyone to look alive.”
“Yeah… yes, sir.”
Snowy twisted in her harness and looked aft at the turbine tech. “Hey, Scrounge, you okay?”
“Yes, ma’am. I’m fine.”
Sandra Caitlin hastily dropped back down the ladder. She didn’t want to talk to anyone about what she felt like just at the moment. She recalled what had happened the last time she’d tried to speak to someone about this vague and formless uneasiness creeping into her guts. Pausing at the base of the ladder, she gripped the handrails, trying to control the protracted shudder that rippled through her body.
“Strongbow, Strongbow, do you copy on this circuit?”
The familiar husky alto came through faintly on Quillain’s tactical set. “Roger that, Moonshade, I got you.”
“We are under way and inbound. What’s the situation there?”
“Still green and quiet. We think we’ve got the guard force eliminated and the crew secure, but we’re still working a compartment-by-compartment search. We haven’t found those damn kids yet, either. I’m hoping they may already be over the side.”
Stepping out onto the starboard-side bridge wing, Quillain looked aft. He saw the set of red and green running lights standing boldly in toward the tanker as if the craft that carried them had every right in the world to be there.
“Keep that search going until you’re absolutely sure,” Amanda replied. “You’ve got about five minutes before I come alongside. We can’t risk getting a bunch of children trapped in the middle of a firefight.”
At that instant, somewhere down in the superstructure, an automatic weapon emptied in a single protracted burst, an angry flurry of single shots following.
An excited voice cut into the channel. “This is Corporal Clasky, second squad. Skipper, we got trouble on deck two! We got a man down! We need a corpsman!”
“Roger that! Corpsman to deck two! All elements! We are blown! We are blown! Clasky, what have we got down there?”
“It’s those goddamn kids, sir! The little bastards have guns! They’re shooting at us!”
At the midships gangway, Sergeant Tallman thumbed off the FALN’s safety and muttered under his breath to the men crouching along the railings. “Look alive, boys. We got business.”
In response to the small-arms fire aboard the tanker, Union troops in platoon strength streamed out from the dockside shelters and double-timed for the gangway. The officer leading then yelled up a question. Tallman responded with a casual wave of his arm, the details of his equipment and uniform still lost in the deck’s shadows.
“Steady, let ’em come in. Let ’em bunch up. Grenade launchers, load antipersonnel. Pick your targets.” Tallman crooned softly, easing the mode selector of the FALN to full automatic. “Make the first one count, then rock and roll.”
The lead elements of the Union platoon clustered at the base of the gangway and their officer set first foot upon it. That was Tallman’s mark.
“Take ’em!” he yelled. Whipping the FALN to his shoulder, he held down the trigger.
The Union platoon melted under the raking storm of bullets and buckshot. Bodies crumpled to the pier decking or fell into the gap between the ship and the pilings. Other Union troopers out in the night recovered rapidly from their surprise, however. Muzzle flashes flickered back among the dockside sheds, and slugs whined off the tanker’s side.
“Stay down! Stay back in the cover of the deck lip. Riflemen, set to sermiauto! Grenadiers and SAW men, pick your targets! Conserve your ammo!” Tallman reached for his own M-4 lying on deck nearby, then noted the sprawled form of the Union sentry he had slain. Reaching over, he grabbed a fresh twenty-round clip of 7.62 NATO from the dead soldier’s belt. “Waste not, want not,” the NCO muttered, socking the reload into the FALN’s magazine well.
“What is our signals status?” Belewa demanded. “Who do we have communications with?”
“High-intensity jamming on all standard bands, General,” the sweating radioman replied, frantically hunting up and down the frequency range for clear air. “Possibly we are being received elsewhere, but I can’t read any acknowledgments.”
“What about the main government station at Mamba Point?”
“I had burn-through with them for a moment, General. But then they dropped off the net. I cannot reestablish contact.”
Belewa gritted his teeth. If the first American SLAM missile had destroyed the Port power-relay station, then the second must have targeted the transmitters on the top floor of the Mamba Point Hotel.
“The city telephone exchange is down,” Sako Atiba reported from his position, crouched before the command track’s bank of field phones. “We have only our tactical land-lines around the harbor area. The Americans are executing their classic Baghdad strike template, using their cruise missiles to kill our communications and power.”
“They’ve held off on their radio jamming until this moment as well,” Belewa muttered. “Their primary assault is under way and we still aren’t seeing it. Check all perimeter outposts. Something has to be happening out there!”